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5 Biggest Backstage Bullies In WWE History

9 May 2017

5. Bill Demott

It must be an exciting feeling, training to become a professional wrestler and become the next big thing in the WWE unless you’re training with Bill Demott. Demott worked as a trainer in the WWE performance centre and became head trainer for the professional wrestling reality TV series, Tough Enough. During his time as a trainer, Demott allegedly bullied his trainees both physically and mentally, made his trainees perform dangerous drills and moves they had no experience doing and used racist and derogatory slurs towards his trainees, such as calling a Middle easterner a “terrorist”. That was not all, as Demott was also accused of sexual harassment and asked trainees to wrestle naked, such as Luke Gallows, who was butt-naked in the ring one time and gave stinkfaces to Zack Ryder and Melissa Coates while Demott held jelly donuts over their faces. For some reason, Demott had a particular disdain for Enzo Amore, who was often a victim of Demott’s bullying. Enzo Amore may have a face that’s punchable’ or ‘kickable’ to some, but that is no excuse to bully him or anyone else for that matter. Eventually, Demott resigned from the WWE in March of 2015 after widespread accusations of his bullying came to light.

4. Dynamite Kid

Dynamite Kid was a real tough guy and one of the most influential in-ring performers in wrestling history, however, that being said, he had a reputation for being a stiff worker and a bully in and out of the ring. Kid used to bully newcomers in the ring with real stiff kicks and punches and one of his victims who would attest to this is The Hardcore Legend, Mick Foley, who in his debut match received a stiff clothesline from Dynamite Kid that tore a ligament in his jaw, leaving him unable to eat solid food for weeks. Outside the ring, Kid was no different; he got into lots of bar fights, altercations with other wrestlers and was violent towards his ex-wife. In fact, on one night he woke up his wife with a gun in her mouth, telling her “next time it’ll be loaded”. As mentioned, Dynamite Kid got involved in many altercations with other wrestlers, that would often turn violent including an altercation with Bruce Hart, one of the older brothers of Bret and Owen Hart, which saw Dynamite Kid break his jaw. Another incident, perhaps his most notorious one, was with Jacques Rougeau, who had enough of Kid bullying him, so he punched Kid in the face, knocking out several of his teeth. Dynamite Kid is now confined to a wheel chair as a result of spinal and leg injuries he sustained throughout his wrestling career, probably from too many diving headbutts, if you ask me.

3. Shawn Michaels (In The ‘90s)

Just to be clear, Shawn Michaels is undeniably one of the best wrestlers ever to step foot in a WWE ring and is by no means a backstage bully now but back in the nineties, this was a different story. Besides abusing drugs and alcohol, Michaels was the leader of a backstage group known as “The Kliq” that comprised of himself, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Triple H and X-Pac. Each member of the group wielded tremendous power in the company, which they abused backstage not only to bully wrestlers they didn’t like but to bury them. In one instance, Michaels fought in a match against Big Van Vader and when Vader made a mistake, Michaels angrily yelled at him, kind of like when Randy Orton loses his cool. Michaels even went as far as threatening to get Vader fired the next time he did something like that again, which actually made Vader cry and they say, big men don’t cry.

2. Vince McMahon

When you’re the boss and have so much power in the company, you can pretty much get away with anything including bullying. Vince McMahon is known to be a bully backstage, as mentioned by CM Punk and one of his most infamous cases of bullying was the hazing of former WWE announcer, “Good ol’ JR”, Jim Ross. Jim Ross suffers from Bell’s palsy which results in one side of his face being paralyzed and so Vince McMahon thought that it was a good idea to mock him for this in a tasteless fashion in a segment on RAW with Hornswoggle, which did not go down well with fans. McMahon even went as far as creating a video of JR receiving “rectal surgery”, which was a plain mockery of a legitimate colon surgery that Jim Ross had. In the video, McMahon pulls out a bottle of JR’s barbecue sauce from JR’s ass among other things before pulling JR’s head from out his ass. For a company that has a strong anti-bullying campaign, it’s ironic how McMahon was able to get away with all this.

1. JBL

This list would not be complete without including JBL. Currently a color commentator for SmackDown Live, he has been accused of bullying Billy Silverman, Chris Masters, The Blue Meanie, Palmer Cannon, The Miz, René Duprée, Muhammad Hassan, Mark Henry, Matt Hardy, Brian Christopher, Shannon Moore, Paul London, Justin Roberts, Joey Styles, Mauro Ranallo and the list just goes on. It is even believed that JBL was responsible for Meng leaving the company back in 2002. JBL has been accused of doing all sorts of things from throwing people’s luggage into running showers to soaping people’s asses in the showers. But it was not just backstage where JBL’s bullying occurred but in the ring too. One infamous example was when JBL gave The Blue Meanie a Texan thrashing at an ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view in 2005. JBL legitimately threw punches at The Blue Meanie, busting him open and leaving him in a bloody mess. However, not all of JBL’s victims were passive as back in 2008 during a Tribute to the Troops show in Iraq, a drunken JBL received a black eye after he was punched right in the face by former ECW commentator, Joey Styles, who had enough of his bullying. A testament that bullies never do win.